


The Company Falls

by in_a_blog_in_the_ground



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Battle of Five Armies, Choose Your Own Adventure, it's not pretty, open-ended ending, they all live OR they all die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_a_blog_in_the_ground/pseuds/in_a_blog_in_the_ground
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the Battle of Five Armies, Thorin sees the rest of his Company fall before him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bofur1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/gifts).



The mud is seeping into his boots, but Thorin does not care. The arrows in his chest are making it hurt to breath, but Thorin does not care. Fili and Kili are lying unmoving in his arms, and their ragged wounds are screaming at him of his failure. What sort of king, what sort of uncle, would let his sister’s sons die instead of being protecting them? Fili had gasped, the ugly black sword sticking out of his chest had punched the air from his lungs. He had looked almost confused as he fell, eyes seeking his uncle’s for understanding he couldn’t give. In his shock, Thorin hadn’t seen the axe intended for him, but Kili had, and pushed him out of the way, taking the full blow himself. As the blade sunk deep into the corner of his neck and shoulder, he fell sideways without a sound, but Thorin screamed in rage and sorrow, and took off the huge goblin’s head in a single sweep. He fell to his knees as the dwarven host finally breached the hill and took up positions around them, and gathered the bodies of his nephews close, but there was nothing he could do. Together in death, as in life, so the sons of Dis passed into the dark.

Thorin raises his head. Everything seems muffled, but his eyes are drawn to certain points of the battlefield. He seeks the other members of the Company that has followed him across half the map; somehow to him they are shining out against the smoke and mud like stars.

He finds Nori slashing and whirling, faster than anyone he’s ever seen fight, save Fili and Kili with their lean youth. He looks unstoppable, making his way to Dori and Ori, who are cornered. His rage is fearsome. He breaks through the line of orcs around them, and Thorin almost cries out in gladness along with Dori and Ori to see him. Then a spear is thrust from behind as Nori’s turning, the jagged blade catches him through the side. In shock, he falls to his knees. Ori screams and rushes heedlessly towards him, Dori closely following. In his panic, Ori doesn’t notice the enormous troll until it’s upon him. It grabs him up and shakes him, trying to snap his neck. Dori slams his sword up to the hilt into the troll’s stomach, and then with his bare hands, forces its grip open, his incredible hidden strength pitted against the troll’s. Ori lands on Nori and they fall to the side, unmoving. Dori is trying to hold them both; Thorin can hear his wailing even from here.

The Broadbeams are fighting as a unit, following Bifur, who in the heat of battle is for once singularly focused. Bofur beside him is laughing as always as he swings that miner’s mattock with deadly abandon, but there is something beneath the laughter that Thorin finds he is glad is usually hidden. And Bombur, already so surprisingly efficient with mere cooking pots and pans, is an absolute force with the twin maces he found in the Mountain. The three are smashing their way through the enemy, roaring Ered Luin battlecries Thorin has never heard before, but it is attracting more and more foes and soon they are completely surrounded. Thorin loses sight of them in the chaos, but he can still hear them shouting, and he takes comfort in that. Even that small comfort is stripped away when the calls fade and he can hear them no longer.

Oin and Gloin are also working as a team, moving around the battlefield, Oin patching up injuries when he can with Gloin fiercely guarding his back. Warriors spring up along their path to return to the fight, seemingly miraculously healed, so great is Oin’s skill. Thorin wills them to find the Broadbeams and the Brothers Three soon; to bring them up again too. In horror he sees the warg coming that Gloin does not, and the red-maned dwarf is borne to the ground, hand reaching for his brother. Oin brings his iron staff down with such force that it emerges out the other side of the warg’s head, covered in gore, but the monster wasn’t alone, and Thorin can’t find his cousins in the sudden wave of matted fur and snapping teeth.

In desperation he turns to the hilltop opposite where Balin has set up command, his ragged banner flapping in the hot wind as he barks orders to his trumpeters, trying to direct the turn of the battle. Canny Balin, if anyone can save them all, it is him. The dwarf he just spoke to raises an auroch horn to his lips and blows a deep, low note, suddenly cut off as a blacktar orcish arrow buries itself in his throat. Balin snatched up the horn and finishes the blast, nodding as a unit of Dain’s Iron Hills dwarves wheels left in response. Thorin wishes he had a horn of his own, so he could have warned Balin of the enemy force storming the lee side of his hill. Too late, too late, Balin turns and sees, raising the horn to his lips again while slicing with his sword. The blasts fade as Thorin watches his banner fall.

In a fog, Thorin hears screams behind him, and tries to turn his head, barely ducking as the body of a dwarf flies over, his armor rent and dripping. Looming up behind the king is a monster such as he’d never seen before. Taller than a man, its dark hide is covered in scale plates or armor, Thorin can’t tell. A reptilian head swivels around to pin Thorin with a cold, unthinking gaze. A dwarven helm drops from one clawed hand, Thorin doesn’t see if there was a head still in it or not. The creature hisses as it launches itself at him, fast as a striking snake. Faster still is the broad warrior that slams into its flank, bringing them both to the edge of a dropoff. Dwalin roars, a great wordless bellow, as he buries a sword in its chest, but the thing still has enough life to hook its claws into his battleharness and slither back, pulling them over the side. Thorin helplessly stretches out a hand to his brother-in-blood, but can only watch with bloodshot eyes as he tumbles out of sight.

The sudden movement jars the arrows, causing the sharp heads to slice further into his body. With a cough and a sudden gush of blood from his lips, Thorin slumps, still trying to keep hold of Fili and Kili. He is going to die, he realizes. It is only fitting, since he had led all the others to their doom. One by one he watched them fall, until only he was left. _Loyalty, honor, and a willing heart,_ he thinks bitterly, _such pretty words. Such useless sentiment_. They had given him everything, and he had rewarded their loyalty, their honor, their willing hearts with choking deaths in the mud, watching their brothers fall around them.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry”, Thorin whispers as his eyes turn skyward. “Please wait for me, my friends. My kin. My brothers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so confirmed deaths in this story are without a doubt, Fili and Kili, as per canon, sorry. As for the others...I'm going to leave it up to you whether this also follows canon, and they all survive somehow, or if this is in fact an AU and they all die horribly. Feel free to let me know what you want to think.


	2. Ending 1: Canon Divergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's dead. Very quite dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After some thought (and guilt induced by your comments, my friends XD you win this time), I'm seriously turning this into a choose-your-own-adventure. If you were NOT for the 'everyone dies' ending, maaaaaybe don't read this chapter. It ends on a nicer note than how it starts, and hopefully one that will make you feel better about everything, but, um. Well. Up to that point, this is going to be...not nice. Okthere'syourfairwarning!

Nori bled out slowly, the lodged spearhead keeping him alive just long enough to see his brothers die. There was an audible snap as the troll broke Ori’s neck before Dori could pry him from its grasp. Ori fell, and Nori tried to catch him, but couldn’t seem to move his arms, or anything else. He watched, helpless, as a dozen blades sunk into Dori’s unresisting back while he tried to hold them both to him. The last thing Nori saw was the light leave his brother’s eyes.

-

The Broadbeams pushed back against the endless tide of orcs and goblins, rising up again and again to sing their battlecries, but each time with less and less strength. Bofur swung his mattock in a wide circle to clear a space for them to breath, but the gaps were filled far too quickly, despite Bifur stabbing and slicing, and Bombur crashing with his maces. For each foe felled, three more sprung up in its place. Their brave songs turned into shouts for help that never came.

-

Oin reached for his brother as a warg came out of nowhere, bearing Gloin to the ground with his shoulder in its jaws. It met with a grisly end as Oin’s iron staff punched through its skull, but wargs come in packs, and Oin and Gloin were torn apart by the tide, never to raise another wounded warrior.

-

Balin blew blast after blast on his horn, hoping to summon help before his position was overthrown, but rescue was coming too late, too late. No foe could touch him in close combat, but the enemy had brought archers up the hill, and Balin fell, pierced by blacktar arrows.

-

Dwalin saw Thorin reaching out for him, desperation in the king’s eyes, but he was too far away, and Dwalin couldn’t grab his hand. The monster was dead beneath him, but his harness was tangled in its claws. As they fell, they rotated slowly, and Dwalin landed with the beast’s weight on top of him, crushing his ribs and sending the shards into his lungs. His last breath was a pained and bloody gasp.

-

Bilbo wept as Thorin finally closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he saw twelve dwarves arrayed before him, their terrible wounds gone as if they never were. Some of their hands were comfortably holding familiar weapons, or laid companionably on each others’ shoulders and backs, greeting one another. They smiled to see him.

Dori and Balin bowed low side by side, ever conscientious.

Ori smiled happily before remembering his manners, and bowed as well.

Fili and Kili, standing right and left of the little scribe, laughed as he straightened, red-eared, and clapped him on the back before coming forward to embrace their uncle.

Bofur and Nori standing together grinned and tipped jaunty salutes with their hands, as if getting his attention across a crowded pub.

Bifur and Oin were engrossed in conversation until Gloin coughed loudly and dug an elbow into his brother’s ribs. The three tipped polite nods in Thorin’s direction. “Greetings here, Thorin,” Bifur rumbled in perfect Westron.

To everyone’s surprise, Bombur came forward and engulfed Thorin in a massive bear hug, lifting him off the ground in his enthusiasm. Remembering himself, he released the slightly winded king, and shuffled back until he bumped into Dwalin, who just snorted, bemused, and patted him on the shoulder.

The warrior walked forward, and stood before his friend.

Thorin gaped, open-mouthed, at all of them. He wanted to cry, to laugh, to thank them, to apologize. “My friends…” he whispered.

“Where to now?” Dwalin gripped his arm, smiling. Behind him, everyone straightened, adjusted straps, hefted their weapons over their shoulders in readiness. They all looked to him.

For the first time, Thorin felt truly without direction. What _do_ they do now? What journey now lies before them? Would they follow where he led? This last frightened Thorin the most. He realized now, and hoped that it wasn’t too late, that without his companions, his brothers, he was lost.

As if sensing his worry, Balin met his eye and gave a knowing wink. “We’re wit’ ye, laddie.” Fili and Kili bobbed their heads beside him.

Looking around, Thorin met the eyes of all his Company, and knew it to be true.

“Well then,” he smiled, confidence returning. “Shall we?”

And so, the Company of Thorin Oakenshield followed their king into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where they met up with old friends and family, took up the biggest table in Mahal's halls so there'd be room for everyone and anyone who came after, drank themselves silly, and partied til the end of time. The eeeeend! (of this part)
> 
> Read on for the canon complicit ending! Where only...three of them die...I did say canon complicit, sorry :( But it's not as bad as all that, promise!


End file.
